But despite the loss to Las Cruces High on Tuesday night, Day said he was "more prouder of our basketball team tonight than I have been all season."

The Tigers hung with the Bulldawgs -- ranked No. 8 in Class 5A and the favorite to win District 3-5A -- a vast majority of the game. But a second half run propelled Las Cruces to a 67-58 win over Alamogordo Tuesday night in the Tiger Pit.

Many have said D3-5A is the Bulldawgs' to lose and the Tigers may have played one of the best games of the season in the district opener Tuesday night.

"I'm so proud of our guys competed tonight," Day said. "We really gave Las Cruces, in my opinion, a basketball game and we weren't intimidated by them. And credit Cruces, they played excellent defense in the second half. Made veteran shots, made veteran plays down the stretch and I thought that was the difference in the basketball game.

"We're just not there yet. But I think you can see if we can continue to improve, we can have a really nice season."

Alamogordo (12-7) had a early 15-4 lead in the first quarter before Las Cruces went on a 10-0 run to end the first quarter and trailed the Tigers 15-14 after the first eight minutes.

The Bulldawgs (11-5) led 30-27 at halftime, but the Tigers were able to tie the game three times in the third quarter. J.J. Johnson's 3-point basket tied the game at 39-39 with 4:06 left in the third quarter.

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But after that, Las Cruces went on a 8-0 run in the final four minutes of the third quarter and led 47-39 heading into the fourth quarter.

The Bulldawgs increased their lead to 56-42 with 5:42 left in the game, but Alamogordo did cut the lead to 60-50 with 2:42 after two consecutive 3-points by T.J. Jones and another trey by Jones got it to 62-55 with 1:30 to go.

But Kamryn Dixon's basket put Las Cruces back up by nine with a little over a minute to go and the Bulldawgs were able to hit free throws in the final minutes.

The Bulldawgs were able to hit key shots down the stretch and got some offensive rebounds for second-chance points.

Las Cruces finished with five in double figures with Kai Williams leading the way with 14 for the Bulldawgs. Dixon and J.T. Romney each scored 13 for Las Cruces and Joseph Garza and Trevor Noel both scored 12 points.

"We had some bad turnovers in the first half, but we eliminated that in the second half, made some shots, kids made their free throws and we were fortunate to come out on top," Bulldawgs head coach William Benjamin said. "The kids did a great job distributing the ball and making their shots. Very unselfish team. Total team effort against a very good team.

"It's (district) basketball and when you start talking about (district), everything counts, everything matters. And you're going to get the best from everybody and Alamo played very good tonight, played very well."

Jones led the Tigers with 21 points -- including going 5 of 7 from 3-point range. Tyler Day and Johnson were both in double figures with 16 and 13 points respectively and sophomore center Josey Mills had five blocks for Alamogordo.

The Tigers hope playing well against the district's top team will give them some momentum and look to continue to improve going forward.

"I think ... as our coaches tell us, if we can play with that intensity in practice, we can be a lot better basketball team next time we play them," Tyler Day said. "Even though we lost, I'm still proud of the guys and we fought really hard. I think it's just a news flash to our team on how good we can really be when we work hard in practice."

Contact Mark Rudi at mrudi@alamogordonews.com. Follow him on Twitter @mrudi19